"Hermione Granger."
She jolted to a halt at the door to her office, causing hot tea to slosh all over both hands. Hermione rushed to her desk and put the mug down, shaking the scalding water off. Then she looked up to see someone sitting in her chair.
Not just someone. A man who had gray, but black, but graying, sort of black hair, and a hookish-yet-Roman… no, not that big of a nose—and piercing eyes that held color, yet sucked the light right out of the room. Thick-tread, lace-up boots rested on her desk.
Looking at him gave her a headache, so she turned slightly away and stared at the boots instead.
Resting on her desk.
"Did you have an appointment?" she asked, trying for an authoritative posture. This was her office. And her chair.
"Pardon my appearance," his voice floated through the air, as smooth and unforgettable as the rest of him. "You see, I really shouldn't be here."
"Then why are you here?" she asked, finally locking her eyes onto the out-of-season black trench coat.
"There is much to discuss," the vague-looking man said. "Close the door."
Hermione pushed the door shut, flicking the latch closed before she could even think of what she was doing.
Merlin, she'd just read about this very thing. Without a doubt, a vampire sat in her chair, using his ability to blend into his surroundings, to be seen and unseen at the same time.
"How did you get in here?" Hermione's words stuttered out of her, but at least she got them out.
"Same as you."
"But you're not a… You're a…"
The vampire didn't blink. "Tell me what you know. Everything."
Hermione felt compelled to do exactly what he said in that very instant. She would take him to the Prickly Arse Pub and show him the blood Draco had stashed in the back room, and he would…
She blinked wildly, and the compulsion slowly faded. This powerful being had gotten into the Ministry, undetected. He'd gotten through a locked door. Then, he'd used some type of compelling mind control on her (an illegal act according to at least three statutes and regulations she could cite off the top of her head).
Hermione's mind reeled. There was no time to process. No opportunity to research counter arguments, unsure of what the argument even was. She needed facts.
She stared straight at the dark man with the crooked nose in the trench coat, with eyes that pierced through her nerves. He wasn't so difficult to focus on now that she'd broken through his suggestive power.
"What do you want?"
The man was still sitting there, not offering her any information about himself—sitting there, thinking he could order her around—sitting there…
"And get out of my chair!" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips. This was still her office, and she still had a right to sit at her own desk during an interview… interrogation… whatever this was.
"Impressive." The man rose, towering a good foot over her. Accustomed to being dwarfed by giants, centaurs, and half-trolls in her line of work, Hermione stood her ground.
But this man seemed more imposing, more dangerous than even the sea of Wizengamot elders she was supposed to have faced that morning. This wasn't magic. This was intimidation of a darker kind. Hermione took a careful step back and regarded him with all the professionalism she could muster.
"Who are you?"
"They call me Burns," he said. "I was sent to take care of a group of rogues who had fallen outside of the Council's control. They gave me the slip in Prague and now I have you to deal with as well. Though it would be useful to have someone on the inside at the Ministry of Magic." He stared into a corner of the room, tapping his fingers together.
Hermione's arm throbbed under her robe, reminding her of what she'd been through in the last few hours, the pressures of her job, her personal life, and everything else. Another complication was going to tip her over the edge of short-lived, hopeful enthusiasm and plunge her back into the pit of 'nothing I do is going to make this better'.
"Why should I help you?"
"I was under the impression that 'helping' is what you do." He gestured to the certificates and plaques lining the wall next to her desk. Framed letters hung between the awards, thanking her for unraveling the Ministry's oppressive sanctions that kept certain kinds of people from living their best lives. The vampire peered closely at her again and then occupied the seat across from her on the other side of her desk. He sat back in contemplation.
Hermione scooted around her desk and sat in her chair, busying herself with shuffling papers and unspoken deadlines. After a few minutes, the man was still there, and worse, he still maintained an unhurried, unwavering gaze.
"I want the location of the rogue vampire nest."
"Well, that makes two of us, I'm afraid." Hermione looked up from her paper shuffling. "What will you do once you find these rogues?"
"Exterminate them."
He was worse than her boss, going for the "kill everyone who stands in my way" strategy. Hermione was sick of dealing with people who thought they could fix the world with their one-sided, strong-armed authoritarianism. And he had the audacity to show up in his trench coat, in her office and sit in her chair without an "are you busy this afternoon?", or any notice at all.
Everything about Burns the vampire made her angry. Before she knew it, her hand shot out, gripping an owl-shaped ink blotter tightly in her fist. The weight of it felt like it could do some real damage if she hurled it fast enough.
Hermione froze when she realized she was holding the ink blotter above her head, aiming at the vampire. What in Merlin's name was happening to her? Gryffindor's gauntlets, now she was acting like an impulsive troll. Tossing things around the room solved nothing. Hermione took a cleansing breath and resolutely set the blotter back on her desk.
"Anger fuels the best of us." The dark man flexed his fingers. His unhurried non-reaction angered her even more. If she was confident in her magic, she'd show him a thing or two about what happened when people snuck into the Ministry of Magic unannounced.
She steadied herself, refusing to be rattled by the stranger in her office. "The Ministry needs this case closed, and those people are the evidence I need to close it and keep my job. You can't have them. This is Ministry jurisdiction."
The vampire's long incisors gleamed in the harsh office lighting. "Lucky for you, no 'people' are currently involved. Vampire affairs are never under the jurisdiction of wizards. Look it up."
She just had moments ago, but she wasn't going to admit that to someone who had illegally entered the Ministry so easily. She had standards… principles… People who needed information weren't so quick to kill without first getting what they came for. Strategically burying Draco's file under a stack of illegal gnome extermination records, she continued the conversation.
"Why do you need my help if your Council is above the Ministry?"
"Because you are uniquely positioned to flush them out for me."
"Excuse me?"
Burns gestured to the door with a slight nod. A beat later, Henry popped his head into the office, waving a manilla envelope at her. "Ms. Granger," he said, completely ignoring the dark stranger sitting in her office. "This came for you."
"Thank you, Henry." She got up to meet her assistant at the door and took the envelope, which weighed close to nothing.
A single sheet fell out, containing a small, two-line explanation in tight script written in the center of the otherwise blank paper.
"It's an anonymous demand for a Portkey to Hungary," she read. "They're on the run." She looked into the eyes of the vampire as everything started to make sense to her. "From you."
The vampire waved a hand at the note. "It's not anonymous when you know who it's from." He peered closely at her. "You do know who it is from, don't you?"
Hermione shuddered in a breath and smelled the taint on the note. She didn't have names or faces, but she knew that smell. "How…"
"You can't give them that, of course," Burns told her. "What are they bargaining for?"
Hermione read the paper again. Over and over. If she said it out loud, it would be real. Hermione didn't want it to be real, but there it was.
"They will reverse the ritual." She looked up at the vampire. "What ritual? Is that why I drank…" she swallowed uncomfortably… "blood?"
The vampire Burns shifted in his seat. "You don't remember."
"Not all of it. I only have flashes. And bite marks." And nausea. And she drank blood. And…
"Do you want to?"
No, she didn't want to find out that she'd gone from one pathetic state straight into another. But ignorance never served anyone well.
She stood and squared her shoulders. "I missed a whole day, so yes."
Burns rose to his feet and put an icy hand against her forehead. "Close your eyes."
Hermione did, and suddenly she remembered.
She remembered being pulled to the ground, hands and mouths all over her. She remembered the prick of skin all over her body and the screaming. So much screaming.
She had been screaming.
Hermione shuddered out of the trance and suddenly didn't know where to put her hands. Didn't know how to look at the vampire, or anyone, after having all of… that… released into her head.
"I don't know why they thought the memory modification was a good idea," Burns said, casually retaking his seat. "It seems like they did a sloppy job of it, because you only needed a small push. If you had tried harder, you'd probably remember everything on your own. You just didn't want to."
Hermione's hands shook with the knowledge of exactly what she had been going through since she got back to her flat. Her knees knocked together. She stumbled to her chair and almost fell into it.
"What am I?" she asked. She needed to know. She needed someone to say what she couldn't, so that she could deal with it. Rationally. Logically.
As if that were an option.
"They only half-turned you. It gives the experience without eternal damnation. Fledglings must make a choice to be fully turned or reverse the ritual to return to their previous state."
He spoke like this sort of thing happened every day. Hermione couldn't keep her hands still enough to take notes, or summon security, or… anything. Her mind reeled. What had he been saying? Something about being half-turned?
"I… I've never heard of such a thing."
"It's very rare. Usually, it's done as part of a bargain. As you saw here." He indicated a long finger at the note Hermione had inadvertently crushed in her fist. "Under the right circumstances, it's reversible."
Air whoosed back into Hermione's lungs. Reversible? That could mean she wasn't eternally cursed. Not like her magic… oh, there was the stabbing hurt again. No, she was definitely still with the living.
Her boss wanted to nail the people responsible for the random attacks. The vampire who sat in front of her wanted the rogue vampires to satisfy his Council.
Why couldn't she do both? Hermione didn't know how vampires worked, but if this one had strolled into the Ministry without tripping any alarms, he could handle getting his fellow brethren in and out of the interrogation rooms in the Auror's Department. After she'd brought them in under her boss's name, saved her job, and gotten the ritual reversed.
"You can have them after I've brought them in for questioning."
"And how do you intend to do that? By promising them an audience with the Department of Portkey Management? Imagine what would happen if you invited a coven of rogue vampires into the Ministry's bowels."
"You're here," she challenged.
"Am I? Who would believe you if I simply disappeared?" Burns said and then faded into some kind of mist right before her eyes. Then his appearance solidified almost immediately.
"Nice trick," she quipped before she could stop herself. "I have a full plate at the moment, and tight deadlines to meet, so if you wish to discuss anything further, kindly see my assistant for an appointment." She motioned at the door and shuffled more files around, willing the man to be gone.
But of course, it wasn't so easy to get a disappearing man to leave. "Before you get caught up in trying to regain your previous life, there's something you should consider."
Hermione looked up from her shuffled parchment. "And what is that?"
"You might not feel it now, but your body is dying."
Hermione felt the harsh sting in her arm return, radiating all the way to her fingertips. She clenched the hand that hadn't moved in over a year. "I'm not… That's impossible. I'm finally getting better. My magic…"
"It isn't yours," Burns said frankly. "It's temporary. If you had any magic of your own, I would have killed you before you used that Portkey to return to the Ministry."
Hermione shuddered at the threat. "But…"
"You've fed on the blood of wizards, I can smell the taint on you. At first, you feel its power and strength," he explained. "Most vampires only get the rush, the thrill. You can use the magic because you've been trained to channel it. When it wears off, you will crash hard. Each time you drink tainted blood, you risk losing your sanity. Next time, I recommend you feed from a less contaminated source. And you will need to make your final decision before your body decays beyond repair."
Hermione stared up at him. "How long do I have?"
"By the looks of you, twenty-four hours, give or take a few."
"Twenty-four hours! But that's not enough time to even start the Portkey acquisition application!"
Burns shrugged. "I'd be more concerned about survival. You must either return to your previous state, which requires the vampires who did this to reverse the ritual. Or, you can complete the transformation. At the moment, you are useful to them. If you decide to turn, you will be uniquely positioned to assist me. But be warned. If you insist on ignoring your situation, you will no longer have a life to worry about. Also, if the rogues are allowed to remain free, more innocent people will die."
Hermione faced away from him, steeling her nerves. "There's got to be a way…" She turned to face the slowly spinning chair as if someone had just gotten up. The door latched itself shut, the only sign that anyone else had been in the room.
She hurried to her door and stuck her head out to find her assistant busy with his own stack of files. "Henry, did you see anyone come through here?"
Henry looked at her like she had grown two snake heads. "Just myself. And you. Were you expecting someone?"
"Never mind," Hermione said, closing the door. She stared down at the evidence on her desk, the crumbled note in her hand.
Her heart was still beating. Her lungs were still filling and expelling air. But there was a distinct sense of finality about it, as if both organs were ready to give notice and take early retirement at any moment.
Hermione thought about the consequences of bargaining for vampire rights inside the Ministry. The ridicule. The loss of credibility. Then she thought about her boss taking her job away if this coven were to disappear before she even had time to bring them to justice.
Because that's what they were. From the note, Hermione could sense the group of them. From her memory of the attack, she could see them hovering over her.
Hermione's hands fluttered up to her face to wipe the sting of tears away. How could this have happened? All she ever wanted to do was good in this world. All she ever asked for in return was to be appreciated for her efforts. But circumstances had been conspiring for over a year to cast her out.
Her magic had left her, but she was still willing to fight for the people who needed her voice.
Was she willing to die for them, too?
The whisper in her blood, the strength she wasn't supposed to have, the vampire claimed that it was a false promise of her magic returning to her. Whatever was in that bag Draco gave her, it was only a bitter taste of what she'd lost. A self-adhesive bandage to hold her body together while it tore itself apart from the inside.
And the file… disclosing the location of the rogue nest would save her job. But if Burns was right, she wouldn't be alive long enough to do it.